■ UMC looks to NT$100 bn sales
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world's second-largest supplier of made-to-order chips, expects 2004 sales to rise more than 18 percent on demand from handset and telecommunications equipment makers, Chairman Robert Tsao (曹興誠) said.
Sales will exceed NT$100 billion (US$3 billion), Tsao said last night at an event to mark the end of the Lunar Year. Sales at the Taiwan company rose 12 percent last year to NT$84.8 billion, based on monthly company reports.
The NT$100 billion was given as encouragement to employees and shouldn't be considered an official forecast, spokesman Alex Hinnawi said in response to a Chinese-language newspaper report.
■ Hon Hai biggest revenue getter
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) toped the nation's 1,062 listed companies to post the highest net revenues of NT$328 billion in 2003, a report released by the China Credit Information Service Ltd (CCIS, 中華徵信所) found yesterday.
"Hon Hai took up the first place on the corporate revenue list in two consecutive years," the service company said in a written press statement, adding that Hon Hai gained NT$245 billion in revenues in 2002.
According to CCIS, the runner-up is Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), Taiwan's largest notebook computer maker, which gained NT$292 billion in revenues last year, or a 105 percent growth from one year earlier. The remaining corporations that made the highest revenues last year included Formosa Petrochemical Corp's (台塑石化) NT$236.5 billion, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co's (TSMC, 台積電) NT$202 billion and Chunghwa Telecom Co's (中華電信) NT$179 billion.
■ No. 2 in cellphone subscribers
Taiwan ranks second in the world and first in Asia in terms of number of cellular phone subscribers per capita, according to the Cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD).
Citing a report on 2003 world competitiveness published by the Lausanne-based International Institute for Management Development, a CEPD official said Taiwan had 881 mobile phone subscribers per 1,000 citizens, trailing only Italy with 910.2 subscribers, among the 30 countries surveyed with a population of over 20 million.
As for Internet charges during peak hours, Taiwan's were the second lowest in Asia, behind only Malaysia's, the official said.
According to the Institute for Information Industry, Taiwan's cyber population totaled 8.77 million as of the end of September, 2003, accounting for 39 percent of the country's total population.
At the same time, there were 2.7 million broadband subscribers in Taiwan, or 29 percent of the total number of the country's Internet users.
■ CSC unfazed by Chinese tariffs
China's decision to impose anti-dumping tariffs on cold-rolled steel imports will only have a limited impact on China Steel Corp (中鋼), a spokesman for the Kaohsiung-based company said Wednesday.
The official said that China's move will not negatively affect the domestic industry and predicted that the measure may even help lift the price of cold-rolled steel products in Taiwan.
The anti-dumping tariff imposed by the mainland authorities on China Steel products is 24 percent, while various other Taiwan-based steel producers will see a rate ranging from 6 percent to 14 percent.
■ NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar rose for the ninth day in 10 against its US counterpart, to close at NT$33.690 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$774 million.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day